For over a hundred and fifty years a myth has surrounded the
Camp Nawakwa area of the San Bernardino National Forest. The myth
claims that an evil witch roams the woods there, killing
unsuspecting hikers to appease her desire for revenge.
Sarah Robinson was a naturalist and counselor at Camp Nawakwa in
the 1840s and 50s who was burned at the stake for being a witch
after six of her young campers mysteriously disappeared on the
night of the Fall equinox. Since then, dozens of hikers,
naturalists and Forest Service personnel have mysteriously gone
missing in the nearby woods, leaving the Forest Service and local
Police Department completely baffled. Those who know of story of
the "Nawakwa Witch" are sure it's her doing, but no one has been
able to piece together any evidence to actually suggest the witch
is not only real, but responsible for these disappearances.
On June 6, 2006, our friends Georgeanne and George Cacherson,
Jr. (daughter and son of the late George Cacherson) set out with
their videocamera to try and capture evidence of the witch's
existence. We haven't heard from them since. We headed down Jenks
Lake Rd. E. to see if we could find out what happened to them, but
all we found was their camcorder out in the woods, with only this
snippet of tape in it:
[CLICK HERE TO WATCH LOW QUALITY VIDEO]
[CLICK HERE TO WATCH HIGHER QUALITY VIDEO]*
* Please note this video is a large file. We suggest
you let it load/buffer for a while before playing it. To do so,
immediately hit Pause after you click on the link. Once the gray
bar has moved to about half way, then hit Play. The original video
was 1G in size, so we shrank it down to about 100M, hence the
not-so-great quality.
Perhaps if you follow the signs of the witch and then retrace
their steps, you might be able to help find our friends and maybe
some evidence to either debunk this crazy myth, or substantiate it.
We hope, for your sake, it's the former.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Bring many high powered flashlights. Hold
your flashlight next to the side of your head, at eye
height. This will help you find signs of the witch's trail.
The signs can be found anywhere from 7-9 feet high.
2. Mark you car's coordinates. There are
only faint trails out there, and the witch doesn't haunt heavily
trafficked areas. To find your way back to the car after finding
the cache, you really should mark your car's coordinates.
3. Don't attempt this cache alone, or without telling anyone where
you are going. If the witch gets you, your loved ones should know
where to find your corpse.
4. Bring some nitro pills to jump start your heart, for the witch
just might scare the #@&* out of you.
This cache is truly one of the best caches out there. Due to
vandalism, Mr. & Mrs. Wisearse (the creators and original
owners of this cache) were going to permanently archive it. We felt
this cache was too good to not have other geocachers visit it, so
we adopted it on 8/29/07. Happy hunting!